At the same time, lots of folks are navigating this treacherous terrain alone. And with bad maps, broken compasses, rusty canteens, etc.

Lots of folks think about this stuff. But secretly, often. In the back of minds.

They often won’t talk about it.

It’s like a hidden little pocket of unspoken, forbidden thoughts and questions. (It can be hard to bring it up sometimes. Especially in a culture that's often obsessed with inconsequential nonsense.) And a major obstacle with this stuff is going at it alone, with no support system.

Meanwhile, when it comes to exploring this stuff out in the world…

Well, it’s the Wild West out there.

(If you’ve been at this a while, you know what we’re talking about. The flood of noise, hype, and misinformation - from both "experts" and amateurs - can make things pretty confusing.)

That said, on the other side of things…

There are also a number of folks who have been exploring this kind of stuff for a long time.

They know a lot. They have a ton of experience. They have a huge load of lessons they’ve learned the hard way. They could probably help some folks, and save them some trouble, by passing on some of what they've learned. Yet, they're often being passed by and ignored.

But they're out there. So…

LiveReal is a place where folks who are interested in this stuff can meet up.

It’s a place where like-minded folks can compare notes, trade tips, swap advice, and quite possibly, help each other figure a lot more things out, a lot faster.

Plenty of folks bump into this kind of stuff once in a while.

But some folks are a bit more serious about it. They aren’t satisfied with bumper sticker philosophies and mere slogans as a guide to life. They know that appearance isn't reality. Just the opposite: if you want the truth, you’ve got to dig for it.

Our goal is to provide value to you that's far beyond what you put into it.

We aren't trust-fund babies. We have no Daddy Warbucks. There is no academic department/white-wig-wearing Council of Elders or corporate overlords. We explore wherever the evidence leads us. And then we share it.

We also don't collect information about you and sell it. And we never will. And there's also no upselling, no secret “upgrade to the Super-Mega-MEGA-$10k-Level for the real stuff” scammy nonsense.

It's just us - our hearty little ragtag team of underdogs - and you, and other folks like you.

So, what do I get if I join?

Great question.

ESTEEMED LIVEREAL MEMBERS GET THIS:

• Immediate, Full Access to the Entire Site

A backstage, all-access pass to mingle with the stars. (Umm, and by “stars,” we mean our private, members-only content.)

• “An Introduction to 'Inner Work'” | The Online Course

This is the online course (more details below) that lays the foundation, sets the stage, cuts a path through the jungle with a machete to help make way for more advanced conversations to come.

It’s also the fruit of decades of research, investigation and painstaking experimentation. It’s an introductory-level course, but it’s also a huge amount of clear, no-nonsense content on some difficult topics that could save you years of wandering in the wilderness.

• "How To Not Be Manipulated: The Basics In 15 Minutes"

• Access to our Recommended Products

Working on yourself and really figuring yourself out is hard enough when you get great advice and rock-solid information.

But with bad advice and confusing, badly-communicated, slippery misinformation and sloganeering, it’s way more difficult. In fact, it can even make things worse.

There’s a flood of hype, noise, and well-intentioned nonsense out there these days. Just few bad ideas can throw you off course for years. (We’ve know this from experience.) Even good ideas at the wrong time – or used in the wrong way – can become time-wasting detours and diversions.

To help remedy this, we’ve gathered a list of resources we recommend that, in our opinions, are solid, trusty, or least-likely-to-send-you-on-a-misguided-and-unnecessary-odyssey. Think of it as a kind of “Consumer’s Reports” guide for The Big Stuff.

• A Community / Cavalry / Reinforcements to help put this stuff into practice

We’re all drowning in information overload these days. But mere information just clutters the place up…unless you apply it, translate it into understanding, integrate it into real life.

So, how are we attempting to help remedy that? By helping you, to the degree that we can, to put this into practice. Through…

• A Cozy Gathering Spot/Stomping Ground/Headquarters for folks who are interested in this stuff

A group of folks who are interested in the same things, on the same page, working together to help everyone succeed…?

Enough of this can convince a lot of thoughtful folks to “go at it” all alone. And we all wind up poorer because of it.

So, Join the Rebels.

If this sounds at all familiar, you probably understand what we’re trying to get at. This is all no small part why we’ve created this site: as a crash-pad for thoughtful seekers, seeking thinkers, and the spiritually homeless where folks who are interested in this stuff can get together in…

• A Private, Members-Only Discussion Forum

A lost art: good, old-fashioned conversation.

We feature a private, members-only Discussion Board where you can ask questions, have conversations, share tips, rant a little, compare notes, get (and give) reality checks, get stuff off your chest, tell dumb jokes and get weird in a friendly and supportive environment with other folks who are interested in this stuff. We've told search engines to stay out, so it’s just us.

Like Nietzsche said: “One person seeks a midwife for his thoughts…Here is the origin of a good conversation.”

• Extra Members-Only content.

5 Big Ideas That All Major Spiritual Traditions, and Atheists, and Agnostics Agree On

The #1 Reason Why Self-Help Fails So Often (and How To Overcome It)

2 Important Names Worth Knowing When It Comes To Understanding Relationships (That You Might Not Have Heard Of)

…and more.

• Complete and total spiritual enlightenment. Which is nice.

(Yes, we’re kidding.)

• The good vibe that comes from being a Patron of a good cause

We’re working to make ourselves a bit more wise, a little more sane, fulfilled, compassionate and all kinds of fairly mushy stuff.

But this isn’t all about mush.

We’re also working to solve serious problems. The topics we explore touch on deal with things real people are struggling with. Meaninglessness, angst, nihilism, depression, anxiety, suicide, relationship problems, existential crisis, stress, and good old-fashioned “the world just doesn’t make sense” syndrome.

We’re working to explore no-nonsense, practical, workable, affordable solutions to situations like these. Because sometimes (despite what some nameless corporate overlords might say), the answer isn’t simply a matter of finding the right happy pill. It takes some hard thinking, and figuring stuff out, and soul-searching.

We’ve been working on figuring some of this out quite some time now. And we’re still working on it.

But we want to do more. We have a pretty big storehouse of unpublished stuff that’s in-progress but isn’t ready for prime time yet. The vast amounts of time, energy and expense it takes to create all this is painstakingly, vividly real to us.

But by becoming a Highly Esteemed Patron, you help us do more.

Those are the high points.

There are other ways we think about what we’re trying to do here.

In a way, it's kind of like:

• your own private Think-Tank.
• your own team of Information Brokers.
• your own personal Support Network.
• your own community of Core Inner Strength Trainers.
• your own Secret Club of Like-Minded Folks.

…but we won’t go into all that here. (We’re trying to keep this short. Unsuccessfully.)

Except maybe one thing…

“Your own Secret Club of Like-Minded Folks.”

What's that about?

The basic idea:

“The Concord Quartet” – Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott and Hawthorne used to compare notes and read each others’ stuff. J. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out together and drank beer, and eventually wrote some of the greatest books of all time. The “Beats” — Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and others used to collaborate, help and challenge each other. Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Stein, Pound, and so on…

We could go on, but the key point is simple:

Folks working together can often get better results than folks working separately.

A good community of people giving you feedback, reality checks, suggestions, support and so on can make a huge difference. By an order of magnitude.

Finding a good community can be hard. But if you do find it, it can save years of efforts, tons of energy, a lot of sanity, as long as it’s the right group, built on a good foundation. (“Good foundation” meaning something like the value of good conversation, respectful back-and-forth, free-thinking logic, clear-minded reasoning, healthy dialogue, open-mindedness combined with rigorous thought, friendly argumentation, and so on.)

This is the kind of community we’re working to build here.

(Just to be clear: we aren’t promising that you’ll write the next Hobbit or Walden immediately after joining. But then again...who knows?)

Stuff Folks Have Said About LiveReal

"I've been cruising around LiveReal. I'm mightily impressed with your professionalism, ambition and erudition, especially given that it's all served up with such appealing humor and self-deprecation... I coulda used LiveReal when I was a messed up 20 (or 30) year old, it might've saved me a lot of grief. Or not. But I woulda felt like I had more company on my path..."- John Horgan, Senior Writer at Scientific American, author of The End of Science, The Undiscovered Mind, Rational Mysticism, and The End of War

"Really cool!"- Ken Wilber, author of A Theory of Everything, The Spectrum of Consciousness, A Brief History of Everything, The Religion of Tomorrow, Integral Psychology, and much more

"LiveReal is a true gem, tackling the most vitally important issues of the modern world in a way that desperately needs to be heard. I believe LiveReal has the potential to truly become a force to be reckoned with in psychology and spirituality."- Barnet Bain, author of The Third Story, producer of What Dreams May Come, Milton's Secret and Homeless to Harvard

"One of the best websites I have ever experienced."- Ernie, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

"Finally everything I think about in one website/place!"- Stephanie, 21, Converse, TX

"Exactly what I am looking for. A real group of people concerned about spending time concentrating on what is really important…"- Barbara, 54, Spring Hill, FL

"I think about things like this all the time. Usually by myself. Nice to see that others think like me."- Fahad K

"IT IS THE ONLY HONEST THING I'VE SEEN ON THE NET"- MaryAnn, Scottsville, KY

"It is inside my head. It is asking and answering crucial questions that no one else seems to have except me."- Neil, 43, Elgin, TX

"It seems like it was made for me, like this may be exactly what I need at this point in my journey. I feel like this web portal will make me a better person, and help me to make things better for others."- Michael, 33, Lewes, DE

"...I can't stop saying how excited I am about this site... I want to suck the articles in, contemplate them for myself, and then tell others about them....I love having the opportunity to contemplate for myself questions I have never considered until LiveReal got me aware of them..."- Ami, 19, Tuczon, AZ

"Plain truth as if somebody has put down my thoughts."- Rahul, 28, New Delhi, India

"I've read a couple of articles and they were real, honest with no bullshit and that corresponded to my pain and made feel like I'm not recluse in my suffering."- Khaled, 20, Cairo, Egypt

"Great Articles.....a focus on something truly practical. Something normal people can grasp which isn't rooted in esoterica and vague theoretical mumbo jumbo. And yet, a site which acknowledges that there's got to be something more, something beyond the mundane grit of everyday."- Jackie, New York, NY

"I have never run across anything like this. Never have I been invited to join and communicate with other people who understand the true nature of this bizarre place that we call "Alive""- Jefferson, 20, U North Alabama, Florence, AL

"It's unlike ANYTHING I thought I'd ever find on the internet, but it seems like EVERYTHING I've been looking for in life can be found here."- Christopher, 20, Los Angeles, CA

"...a discussion of ideas that I consider to be fundamentally important...It feels like an oasis of sanity and reason and a force for good in an online world that is so often none of those things."- Matthew, 41, London, UK

"From what I've seen so far, has given me something. What that something is I couldn't tell you, describe it, but it's something. Knowledge maybe? Peace of mind? I haven't a clue. But there's something here and I'm being held back from more of it."- Erik, 30, New Windsor, NY

(Note: The above quotes come from real folks, not paid actors. They refer to an earlier version of the site, before it evolved into the even better version you see before you here. 🙂 Anyway, we'll stop for now. We're trying to be humble here. )

FAQ

OK, so, umm, what is this about again?

We try to explain what we're doing here. That said, it's not the easiest thing in the world to explain. (Eg, "We sell hamburgers." That's easy to explain. Unlike what we're doing here.) That said, if you hang around, you'll probably catch our drift if you haven't already.)

What if I join, and then suddenly change my mind and decide that I hate you?

No problem. You can cancel any time. We promise to do everything we can to be nice and hassle-free about it. (We might as you why, so maybe we can fix it, but that's it. Really.)

So, can I definitely cancel at any time?

Yes.

What about a refund?

A bit jittery, are we? Ha - no problem. Totally understandable. Seriously, our plan is not to take your ten bucks and hightail it to Tijuana. So…yes. If you join and decide it’s not a good fit, then we’ll give you a 30-day, easy refund, no sweat.

Why a community? Why not just a blog?

Sometimes interacting with other actual human beings instead of navigating through piles of information by yourself can make all the difference. Especially with stuff as important, personal, and sensitive as this. There’s a major, vital difference between, say, merely reading an article about losing weight and the experience of being in a weight-watchers group, or merely reading an article about alcoholism and the experience of being in an AA meeting. So we thought it just made sense to have a place where folks who are all interested in this stuff can get together and talk/interact/share tips without trolls, spam, or weird looks. (OK, we still give each other weird looks sometimes, but it's all in good fun.)

Is there any kind of secret, hidden agenda here?

OK, let’s be extremely clear about this: we love and are all about open, rational, free, clear, reasonable thinking. We encourage disagreement. We’re less about “what” folks “should” think, more about good, clear, rigorous thinking, period. If trolls, troublemakers or folks with other agendas show up, we’ll ask them to leave. Anyone is free to leave whenever they want. It’s hard to prove a negative, but well, we’d encourage you to poke around on the rest of the site. Hopefully you can get a vibe that we are what we say we are. (And who are we, ultimately? Ha. Something to explore…another time.)

Is anyone secretly controlling you behind the scenes?

LiveReal is secretly owned by some sinister, shady corporate supervillain that’s part of some elaborate and diabolical plot.

Yes, we’re kidding again.

Nope. It’s just us.

LiveReal is 100% free of that kind of stuff. We are fully and completely funded and operated, 100%, by us – the creators – and you – our revered Patrons. We create it, control it, operate it, steer it, own it.

Which means we have no corporate boss telling us what we can say and not say.

No university department head dangling tenure in front of us, telling us what we can research and what we can't.

No angry sergeant pounding his desk, yelling that he's been getting lots of heat because of the questions we've been asking, telling us we're off the case, asking for our guns and badges, ordering us to to stop sniffing around and causing trouble.

No fat-cat Sugar Daddy Warbucks paying us to come to certain conclusions and not others, to hype certain results and bury others. (cough cough pharmaceuticals! cough)

We follow the evidence down wherever weird, twisty trails it leads, and bring it back here for you to poke and ponder.

And that is our plan: to keep be able to continue to follow the truth, as we find it, wherever it leads.

Are you promising to cure all my problems?
No.

We think of this as kind of like a gym. A gym doesn’t promise to lift the weights for you. That part's up to you.

In the same way that nobody can eat, drink, sleep, breathe and etc for you, nobody can “work on yourself” for you. But we’ll do our best to give you the tools, give you a clean, dry, supportive place to work, hopefully surround you with other folks who are doing the same thing so you can swap pointers, discuss finer points of stuff, spot for you, tell you to maybe avoid the month-old lo mien in the refrigerator, and high-five you every so often.

So, at long last, here’s the offer:

Just the Course

$245 (one-time)

"An Introduction to Inner Work" Course

Full 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.

Become a Member

$89 / year

Full access to the entire site

"An Introduction to Inner Work" Course

The Private Members-Only Discussion Forum

Recommended Products

Additional Members-Only Content

Your pricing will never increase as long as you're a member.

Not happy? We have a 60-day refund guarantee,
hassle-free, no questions asked.